Blog

The Tuesday feature. In the #diensttalk series, our employees give a brief insight into their activities and reveal what vision drives them. This time, Dr. Stefanie Seitz, transfer expert at IKTS, gives us an insight into how she develops innovative formats for vocational training, e.g. for the automotive industry, and supports researchers in putting their ideas, knowledge and developments into practice.

Wastewater treatment in sewage plants is conventionally carried out in three stages: First, there is mechanical filtration, followed by biological treatment, and finally secondary sedimentation, in which the treated wastewater is separated from the sewage sludge. Increasingly, however, a fourth treatment stage is being used, which is intended in particular to remove micropollutants such as pesticides or detergents from wastewater. In this treatment stage, ozonation takes place. The ozone (O3) reacts with organic compounds, bacteria, viruses and other pollutants in the water and causes their oxidation or destruction.

In the Paris Agreement on climate protection, the global community for the first time made a binding commitment under international law to ambitious climate protection targets. The countries involved want to work together to drive forward the global energy transition. This requires breakthrough technologies such as those that have been the focus of developments at Fraunhofer IKTS since the institute was founded in 1992. In particular, high-temperature electrolysis-based system chains, which, for example, produce hydrogen, synthetic fuels and fertilizers particularly efficiently from green electricity, air and water, are now about to make an evolutionary leap from the laboratory to international practical use.

A clever idea is paying off: coating stirrers in biogas plants with specially developed polymer concretes can double their service life. The researchers at Fraunhofer IKTS now intend to conquer other markets with their extremely wear-resistant coating technology. Industries that have to stir or pump aggressive substrates and suspensions could benefit enormously. The focus is on the chemical industry and the food and construction industries. But exciting solutions are also on the horizon for wind power rotor blades, which could reduce erosion damage.

The Tuesday feature. In the #diensttalk series, our employees give a brief insight into their activities and reveal what vision drives them. This time, PhD student Micha Philip Fertig provides insights into doctoral studies at Fraunhofer and his research on sustainable solid-state batteries.

The necessary moment for the scale-up of sustainable battery technologies was yesterday. In China, cars with sodium batteries are already on the market. Yet Germany itself is only the blink of an eye away from launching them – if the right course is set now. The decisive aspect here is the intelligent use of regionally and technologically diversified know-how. The ”New Via Regia of Batteries“ holds opportunities.

The Tuesday feature. In the #diensttalk series, our employees give a brief insight into their activities and reveal what vision drives them. This time we follow Dr. Olga Ravkina. As a scientist and group leader, Olga researches ceramic materials and processes for gas separation, such as an environmentally friendly ammonia synthesis route.

Stephan Heilmann develops software for test systems with the aim of ensuring maximum operational reliability – and this job has already taken him high up on wind turbines, on the railways, into the Paris sewers and to the bottom of the sea.

Wear-resistant, electrically or thermally insulating, corrosion-resistant - the demands on component surfaces are very high in many industrial processes and require extreme precision. Atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) is a particularly cost-effective form of thermal spraying which meets the high demands required in industry. The technology has been refined at IKTS for almost thirty years and qualified for various ceramic coatings. Now technologies and know-how are being transferred to commercialization.

Hardmetals will celebrate their 100th anniversary next year and have now been largely optimized. Nevertheless, there are current challenges that lead to novel developments and competitive advantages through higher wear resistance and lower costs, as well as to the efficient use of resources.